We were on a bus tour once and the people on the left side of the bus were carefully looking at something unusual and interesting. The driver had pointed it out and everyone was looking. Unfortunately, I was on the right side of the bus and could not see what they were looking at. It was something I wanted to see, but could not because the bus and a whole bunch of people were in the way.
Several times when we have been on trips away from home I have seen something in the distance which interested me, but I was not sure what it was and couldn’t see it well because it was too far away. If I had had my binoculars along, I would have been able to see it, but as it was, I wanted to see something, but the distance prevented it.
I remember the first time I had bifocal lenses in my glasses. On the way home, I looked down at my fingers and was amazed to see that I had fingerprints. I hadn’t seen them for years. It made me realize that it must be very difficult for someone who is going blind. They want to see something, but can’t because their eyes are not good enough.
Have you ever wished you could see God? I think that in our hearts there is a deep longing to really see God, but we don’t see Him. In some ways it is like trying to see things without binoculars, He is too far away. In some ways we are blind to him and in some ways, there are too many things in the way which prevent us from seeing Him, including our own sin and humanity. But the longing is still there. Or is it? Have we given up on the hope of seeing God or of even really knowing Him? Do we think it is something that will never happen? Or do we continue to hope that we will see God some day?
I suspect that many of us do have a desire to see God face to face. In part this is simply a longing to know God and to have a closer relationship with him. At times God seems so far away from our hearts and lives that we share the feeling of the Psalmist who said in Psalm 13:1 “…How long will you hide your face from me?”
There are many Psalms in which this longing to see God and to experience His presence are expressed. Psalm 4:6 says, “Many are asking, “Who can show us any good?” Let the light of your face shine upon us, O LORD.” This Psalm and many others express the desire for a close relationship with God because of the recognition that joy and life are found there. Psalm 16:11 says, “You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.”
The Bible encourages us to have and develop such a longing in Psalm 105:4 where we read, “Look to the LORD and his strength; seek his face always.”
Most of these verses express a desire for intimacy with God, but this desire to see God is also a desire to see God face to face. Because we know that we can’t see Him now, we sometimes suppress that longing. Kind of like thinking, “If I can’t have it anyway, why think about it.” But I think that the desire to know God in a greater intimacy and even the longing to really see God, to see Him the way He is and to see Him face to face is a longing that God has put within our hearts.
Wouldn’t you love to see God?
I would like to see God for a number of reasons.
If I could see God, then I would really know that He exists. At this time we are asked to live by faith and this is God’s plan for us. We see evidence for the existence of God in creation and in what He has done in history, but for the most part, we see only by faith. No matter how strong our faith or how confident we are in the evidence we see, there is always the possibility of doubt. If we would be able to see God, that doubt would be completely removed and so we long to see Him.
The reality is that we can’t know that God exists. We can believe it, we can have a strong faith in the evidence, but can’t know. If we could see Him, we would know.
Some of you have been to the east coast of Canada to see the fall colors. I have seen pictures of some of those places and they look very beautiful. I have watched shows of such places on TV and with HD television it looks very beautiful, but it just isn’t the same as actually seeing it yourself.
God has revealed so much about Himself to us in the world. Most of us have experienced the wonder of beautiful places in nature. There is a sense of the presence of God in those beautiful places and they truly do speak of how amazing God is. If He has created such beauty, what does that say about Him? We read in the Bible about different people like Isaiah, Daniel and John who had visions of God. As we read John’s description in Revelation 4 and try to imagine what God is like, it is a beautiful description. But these pictures, images, reflections of God only make us want to see Him face to face because then we will really see what He is like. It won’t be just a photograph or an image on a screen. It will be seeing Him ourselves in all His glory and beauty.
I don’t know about you, but I want to see God so that I can see what He is really like.
We will know that we are restored.
Of course we know that there was a time when people did see God and had an intimate relationship with Him. Adam and Eve saw God, but then we read what is probably one of the saddest verses in the Bible and one which still impacts us today. In Genesis 3:8 it says, “Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden.”
Adam and Eve began in God’s presence, but sin separated them from that relationship. It is sin that continues to separate us from such a relationship with God. It is because of sin that we can not now see God.
If we could see God, it would mean that the separation which occurred because of sin has been overcome and we would be in a fully restored relationship with God. We long to see God because when we do, we will know that we have been fully restored.
So we have this great longing. We want to see God. We long for a greater intimacy now, but more than anything, we long for sight, for a face to face encounter with our Creator.
But our longing is not fulfilled now. The Bible tells us that we can’t see God’s face. In Exodus 33:20 we read, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.”
1 Timothy 6:16 also speaks about God and says, “who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see.”
That is not to say that we cannot see God at all.
There is a level at which we can have a relationship with God. There are those who have seen God.
Genesis 32:30 tells us the story of Jacob and how he wrestled with God. He had a very close encounter with God, much closer than most. In fact it says there that, “…Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”
Others have also had visions of God which were pretty amazing. Exodus 24:9-10 says, “Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up and saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement made of sapphire, clear as the sky itself.”
Isaiah 6:1 tells us of Isaiah’s vision of God when it says, “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple.”
Of all those who have had visions of God, the one who probably had the longest, most complete and most intimate relationship with God was Moses. For a number of years he regularly went into the presence of God in order to receive God’s wisdom and direction for the people of Israel. He received the law and the pattern for the tabernacle. Moses met with God to discuss construction details and any of you who have ever built something know how many meetings are required with the builder in order to get it right. The Bible describes the intimacy of the relationship Moses had with God. In Numbers 12:6-8 God speaks, “Listen to my words: “When a prophet of the LORD is among you, I reveal myself to him in visions, I speak to him in dreams. But this is not true of my servant Moses; he is faithful in all my house. With him I speak face to face, clearly and not in riddles; he sees the form of the LORD….”
The nature of Moses’ relationship with God was more intimate than any other person. “Face to face” was an appropriate way to speak of it.
In spite of that closeness of relationship, there were nevertheless still boundaries and even Moses did not see God in all His splendor and glory. Moses, who had such intimacy and so many encounters with God, nevertheless desired to see more of God. In Exodus 33, there is a story of how Moses was in conversation with God about God accompanying him and the people in their travels. This may well be one of the most intimate and personal conversations anyone has had with God. In 33:11 it says, “The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend.” We hear Moses asking God a question in 33:12, “You have been telling me ‘Lead these people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me.” We hear God replying, “My Presence will go with you.” We hear Moses responding, “If your presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here.” We hear God promising in verses 17, “I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you, and I know you by name.” Can you imagine what it would be like to have such a close relationship, such a deep and wonderful conversation with God.
What is interesting, however, is that even though Moses had such a close relationship, he still was not able to see God completely. In Exodus 33:18, Moses, in the joy of intimacy asked God, “Now show me your glory.” Even though he had seen so much of God, that it could be described as a face to face relationship, he knew that he had not seen all of God and longed for more. God’s response was, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence…but,’ he said, ‘you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.”
Why such a restriction? The restriction exists because God is veiled by His glory. God is holy, and unholy people cannot see all of who God is without being consumed. In Leviticus 22:3 we read, “Say to them: ‘For the generations to come, if any of your descendants is ceremonially unclean and yet comes near the sacred offerings that the Israelites consecrate to the LORD, that person must be cut off from my presence. I am the LORD.” We cannot come near God’s presence in uncleanness.
God is described in I Timothy 6 as one who lives in unapproachable light. Just as we cannot look at the brightness of the sun without damaging our eyes, we cannot see the glory of God because our eyes are not able to look at such “unapproachable light.”
The glory and wonder of who God is, is so great that even the person who knew God best and was closest with Him could not see Him in His complete glory.
In the New Testament, however, a new reality comes into play. Jesus came into the world for the express purpose of revealing God to us. Over the next month and a half we will hear more and more about the Christmas story and one part of that story which we will hear is the message of Immanuel. Matthew 1:23 reminds us, “‘The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel’—which means, ‘God with us.’”
It was the purpose of Jesus to show God to the people of this world. Luke 10:22 says, “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” In John 1:14 the mystery of the incarnation is revealed when it says, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” John 1:18 is very specific about the concept of seeing God and gives us the good news that we can see God in the person of Jesus Christ. It says, “No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.”
What do we see about God in Jesus? We see compassion, we see that God has a project by which He is seeking to bring people to Himself. We see grace and we see holiness. One of the best studies we can make in the Bible is to look carefully at the life of Jesus to see in Him what God is like.
And yet even that revelation of God has its limits. One day near the end of His ministry, Jesus revealed to the disciples that he was going to leave. He comforted their hearts by inviting them to believe in God and in Him. He promised that he would prepare a place for them and return to bring them to Himself. In John 14:7, Jesus said, “If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.” One of the disciples, Philip, was trying to take this all in and responded, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” This longing we have spoken of was in Philip as well. However, what is puzzling, is that although Jesus came to reveal God to the world and although Philip had been with Jesus for so many years, he still hadn’t seen God with the clarity he desired. Jesus sadly responded in John 14:8-10, “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me?
Somehow even those who saw Him did not get it. God was present and seen in Jesus, but His glory was veiled by the humanity of Jesus. So the longing remained somewhat unfulfilled. We see much of who God is and what God is like, but the longing to truly see God in all His glory and with clear and open eyes remains.
The longing of Moses to see God, when he already had an intimate relationship with God, shows us that the more we see of God, the more we want to see Him. As we see Him in history, we want to see Him more personally. As we see Him in Jesus we rejoice that we have seen God, but we long to see an even clearer revelation. As we see Him in the visions which various people have had, we long to see Him even more clearly.
Will that longing ever be fulfilled? Will we ever see Him face to face?
The promise of Scripture is that we will see Him.
Isaiah 40:5 promises, “And the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all mankind together will see it. For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” Remember that Moses asked to see the glory of God in Exodus 33. Isaiah 40 promises that we will see His glory.
Jesus further declared such a promise in John 17:24 when He prayed, “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.”
Three times in the end of Revelation the promise is given that seeing will be complete and we will once again experience the fullness of a relationship with God.
Revelation 21:3 promises that when Jesus returns and restores all things that, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.”
Revelation 21:22 picks up on Old Testament language of the temple and promises that at that time God will be present with His people. We read there, “I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.” No more will there need to be a place which represents, but also veils the presence of God. God will be present with His people completely. David Ewert writes, “the barriers between God and man are gone.”
In Revelation 22:4 the language which we had in Exodus is seen again and this time there is no restriction. All who are there, “…will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.” Robert Mounce calls this “the greatest of all eternity’s blessings…”
Although at this time we know much about God, there is a time coming when anything which veils God will be removed and there will be no barrier to seeing God. I Corinthians 13:12 says, “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”
What Changes “You Can’t See Him” to “You Will See Him?”
What a radical change! How can it say in one place in the Bible “no one can see God and live” and yet promise that we will see Him “face to face?”
Is it still going to be a veiled seeing like that of Moses who spoke with God face to face, yet longed to see His glory, and truly see? That would be disappointing and the Bible tells us that it will not be like that. These promises indicate a complete seeing, but how? How will we be able to see the face of God and not die?
The answer is that we have died. When we believe in Jesus and live in Him, we have already died and therefore, seeing God becomes a possibility. However, a change is still needed in us which is explained in I Corinthians 15:50 where it says, “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed – in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.”
The change, which Jesus has made possible will happen when Jesus comes back and will make it possible to see the face of God in completeness. Then we will see Him face to face. Then we will see His glory!
Is this your longing? If this is our hope, our longing, how do we live now? If seeing God is the greatest thing we have to look forward to and if it is promised, how do we live now?
Let me share with you several Scriptures which may describe our life now if seeing God is the deepest longing of our soul. Perhaps you could add more. I would encourage you to talk about this with each other and think about what the implications of the hope that we will see God might be. Here are a few suggestions:
John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Romans 12:12, “Be joyful in hope.”
Philippians 3:14, “I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
Matthew 5:8, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”
1 John 3:2-3, “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.”
1 John 4:12, “No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”
May the hope of seeing God fill us with joy, direction, holiness, love and purpose!
